VI.

Luchon is undoubtedly over-petted. The belle of the spas is a trifle spoiled. The inblowing of fashion has been fanning her self-appreciation for years. Prices are crowded to the highest notch, for the season is short and one must live; the hotels are expensive, though pensions and apartment-houses mitigate this; the cost of living is high for the region, though always low when judged by home standards; articles in the shops are chiefly of luxury, and even carriages and guides are appraised at advanced rates. It is the extreme of French fashion which comes to Luchon. Eaux Bonnes and Cauterets are close rivals, but Luchon is the queenliest of the triplet. As a consequence, the place shows a touch of caprice, of vanity, even of arrogance; prosperity is a powerful tonic, but sometimes its iron enters into the soul.

Notwithstanding, the bright little town ends by enchaining us completely. During the days we pass in its Allees and vallees, we come to agree that there could be fewer more captivating spots for a summer wanderer, singly or en famille, seeking a six weeks' resting-place in the mountains. It will grow at length into the recognition of the English and Americans, now so unaccountably unknowing of this mountain-garden; the prediction lies on the surface that in time it must open rivalry almost with that much-loved Interlaken it so happily resembles.

The finishing charm of Luchon is its nearness to the great peaks. Ice and snow are but scantily in sight from the valley itself, but a short rise upon any of the surrounding hills shows summits and glacier fields on all sides but the north, and more ambitious trips quickly place one among them. The range culminates in this region; from east and west it has been gradually rising to a centre, and south from Luchon it finds its climax, attaining in the bulky system of the Maladetta to its full stature of over eleven thousand feet. This mountain mass is the lion of the Pyrenees. It lies in Spanish territory, on the other side of an intervening chain; but from a noted port in the crest of the latter, three hours from the town, the eye sweeps it from base to brow, and its ascent is made from the Luchon valley as headquarters.

There is a peculiar attraction in the proximity of the highest mountain of a range. But if Luchon in this resembles Chamouni, in all other respects it holds its parallel with Interlaken. Here, as there, other groups of important peaks are scattered within reach of attack; explorations on the higher glaciers are facile; the Vallee du Lys is its Lauterbrunnen, the Port de Venasque its Wengern Alp. Within reach of the idler majority, there is a walk, a drive, or a point of view for each day of the month. The roads now pierce every adjoining valley, and paths climb up to all the summits that fence them in.

VII.

A day or two pass uneventfully over us as we linger under the trees at Luchon, and then we shake off the spell, to look for its mountain neighbors. One of the peaks from which the panorama of the Maladetta chain can be best seen is the Pic d'Entecade, a noted point for an object-lesson of the mountains' relief. Some of us accordingly resolve to ascend it. We have at last begun to recognize the truth of a truism,—that of early rising among the mountains. Always given in all "Advice to Pedestrians," in all "Physicians' Holidays," in all hand-books and guides, it had worn off into a commonplace, founded chiefly, it seemed, on a priori health-saws and on repetition. But there is reason, we find, in this worthy acquaintance, and a reason quite apart from health-saws, for it is a weather reason. The great proportion of these Pyrenean days, barring the rainy ones, run a uniform career: gold in the morning, silver at noon, gold again at night. The early mornings are brilliantly cloudless; by nine or ten o'clock the horizon whitens,—it is the dreaded brouillard; faint cloud-balls are taking shape; they roll lightly in, bounding like soap-bubbles along the peaks, finally clinging softly about them; and by noon, though the zenith holds still its rich southern blue, the circle of the hills is broken, the higher summits thickly hung with misty gauze. In the late afternoon, the breeze dislodges the intruders, and softly polishes the rock and ice of the peaks until at dusk they are free again from even a shred of vapor.

Thus, even on fine days, a fine view is rare unless it is an early one. We deplore this unhappy trait of the weather and deeply resent its arbitrariness. But resentment is fruitless under a despotism. And there is after all a certain glow of superciliousness in being up early; the feat once accomplished, it brings its own reward; one feels a comforting disdain for the napping thousands who are losing the crisp, unbreathed freshness in the air and on the mountains; one speedily ceases regretting the missing forty winks, as he opens eyes and lungs and heart to the spirit of the morning.

We accordingly arrange for an early start, not precisely resigned, but resolved nevertheless. The guide, as instructed, knocks at our doors in the morning, just before six o'clock. We hear the fatal words: "It makes fine weather, monsieur;" we awake, imprecating but still resolved; we call out a response of assent, still imprecating; nerve ourselves to rise,—struggle mentally to do so,—struggle more faintly,—yield imperceptibly,—forget for an instant to struggle at all,—and in another instant we are restfully back beyond recall in the land of dreams.

Our resentment was stronger than we knew.

When the carriage finally carries us out from the town, it is the fifth hour at least after sunrise and more than three after our time for starting. We should have had half of the Entecade beneath us, and are but just quitting Luchon. The inevitable thin lines of mist are already cobwebbing the horizons; but there is a good breeze abroad to-day and the clouds are not resting so quietly in the niches as usual. So we comfort us greatly, and the horses urge forward up the valley, themselves seemingly full of hope that the day is not lost.

The base of the Entecade is six miles from Luchon. For some distance the road runs up the Vallee du Lys, whose continuance merits a separate excursion. Then we turn off, under the old border-tower of Castel Vieil, and soon the carriage is dodging up a cliffy hill, the road hooded with beeches and pines and playing majestic hide-and-seek with the sharp mountains ahead. It is only an hour and a half, and we are at the Hospice de France. Here the road ends. The horses stop before the plain stone structure, low, heavily built, and not surpassingly commodious, and we alight to prepare for the climb. The building is owned by the Commune of Luchon, which rents it out under conditions to an innkeeper; and its object, like that of the St. Bernard, is to serve as a refuge for those crossing the pass near which it lies. There are no monks in it, however; it is simply a rough mountain posada, offering a few poor beds in emergencies, and finding its chiefer lifework in purveying to the Luchon tourists.

The hospice is situated in a deep basin of mountains open only on the Luchon side. Directly in front of it, high above us, is located the pass referred to,—the Port de Venasque: the notch in the chain from which the Maladetta is so strikingly revealed. It is itself another noted excursion from Luchon. A great sweep of rocky ridges rises to it, not perpendicular but sharply inclined. There is a savage black pinnacle shooting up on the left, remarkable for its uncompromising cone of rock, its rejection of all the refinements of turf and arbor and even of snow. This is the Pic de la Pique. On the right starts up another summit, sharp also, though less precipitous; and the short ridge between the two has in it the notch, itself not to be seen from below, which constitutes this pass, the gateway into Spain,—the Port de Venasque.

This is one of the most used of all these mountain portals; hundreds of persons cross it annually, herdsmen, mule-drivers, merchants with their small caravans of horses, Spanish visitors coming to Luchon, French tourists seeking the view of the Maladetta,—and most often of all, despite surveillance, the shadowy contrabandista, whose vigilance is greater than the vigilance of the law and the custom-house. We can plainly trace the path as it zigzags upward over the snow and debris, and can outline its general course until it vanishes into the break in the ridge. The line of the ridge itself is just now cut out clearly against the sky, but soft puffs and ponpons of cloud are loitering near it with evident intentions.



But our present quest is the Entecade. This mountain stands farther to the left in the circle of the basin; its own flanks hide its summit from the hollow, so we go forth not knowing whether into the blue or the grey. Impedimenta are abandoned, sticks are grasped, and the guide leads to the assault.

The path turns to the rear of the hospice and crawls up a green slope, commanding finely the black sugar-loaf of the Pic de la Pique opposite. As we advance, the mist has finally closed in upon the crest of the Venasque pass at its right; the ridge is completely hidden, and we turn and look ahead, somewhat solicitous for our own prospects. Before us, up the mountain, long streamers of hostile vapors are swinging over the downs, trailing to the ground and at times brushing down to our own level; but the wind keeps hunting them off, and so far their tenure is hopefully precarious. There is scarcely a tree above the hospice; we have left the line even of pines.

An hour passes. We come to a table-land stretching lengthily forward, covered with the greenish yellow of pastures, and alive with cattle browsing on a sparse turf. The way winds on among the herds; we form in close marching order, with the guide in front and spiked staffs ready for use; for these neighbors are a trifle wild and not used to strangers. They feed on unconcernedly, jangling their bells, but one or two of the bulls cast inquiring glances upon us, and we prudently retire to our pockets the bright red sashes bought in Cauterets until we have passed the zone of porterhouse.

In this plateau is a boundary-stone, and we pass anew into Spain,—stopping to cross and recross the frontier several times, with grave ceremony, and to the unconcealed mystification of the guide. The path slopes up again, passes a dejected little mountain tarn, and another half hour brings us to the final cone, the summit just overhead. The mists are still whirling down, but as often lift again; the Pic de la Pique has disappeared under a berret of cloud, but other and greater peaks beyond it are still cloudless; so, as we push on up the last slope of rock and scramble upon the summit, we see that the panorama is not gone after all and that the climb will have its reward.

For the view is a wide one from the Pic d'Entecade. The summit, 7300 feet above the sea, is an island in a circle of valleys. The hospice basin has dwindled into insignificance. Behind is the trough of the Luchon depression, its floor invisible but the main contour traceable for miles. The Valley of Aran, which opens out below us on the east, shows the fullest reach in the view; its entire course lies under the eye, and the lines of rivers and roads are marked as on a map, while we count no less than fourteen villages spotting its bottom and sides. Beyond and about roll the mountains, in swells and billows of green, roughening into grey and the finishing white.

But it is their culminating summit at the right that at once absorbs attention; it is the monarch of the Pyrenees; we are looking at last upon the Maladetta. It stands in clear view before us, well defined though distant. It is rather a mass than a mountain; it shows no accented, unified form; the wide crests rise irregularly from its wider shoulders of granite and glacier, and fairly blaze for the moment in the break of sunlight.

At nearer quarters, as from the Port de Venasque, the true dimensions of the Maladetta are better realized. There one sees it from across a single ravine, as the Jungfrau is seen from the Wengern Alp. But here from the Entecade also, we can seize well its proportions,—

"In bulk as huge As whom the fables name of monstrous size, Titanian or Earth-born, that warr'd on Jove."

The highest point of the Maladetta, the Pic de Nethou, is 11,165 feet above the sea. The mountain has always been regarded superstitiously; the name itself,—Maladetta, Maudit, the Accursed,—tells of the traditions of the mountaineers. For long, no one dared the ascent. Ramond finally attempted it in 1787, but failed to gain the highest point. In 1824, a party renewed the attempt, and were worse than unsuccessful, for one of the guides, Barreau by name, was lost,—precipitated into a crevasse almost before the eyes of his son,—and the body was never recovered. This added to the evil repute of the mountain; years passed before the cragsmen would have anything further to do with it. It was not until 1842 that M. de Franqueville, a French gentleman, accompanied by M. Tchihatcheff, a Russian naturalist, and by three determined guides, successfully gained the summit,—taking four days and three nights for the enterprise. Since then the ascent has a number of times been made.

This mountain is said to give forth at times a low murmuring sound distinctly audible.

"There is sweet music here that softer falls Than petal from blown roses on the grass, Or night-dews on still waters between walls Of shadowy granite in a gleaming pass."

"One of the most impressive features of the scene on the ridge of Venasque on this memorable morning," so relates one E.S., a traveler of sixty years ago, "was the peculiar, solemn noise emitted from the mountain. The only sound which broke upon our silence while we stood before it without exchanging a word, was an uninterrupted, melancholy mourning, a sort of AEolian, aerial tone, attributable to no visible or ostensible cause.[28] The tradition of the Egyptian statue responding to the first rays of the morning sun came forcibly to my recollection. In her voice, this queen of the Pyrenees 'Prince Memnon's sister might beseem,' and superstition if not philosophy might have persuaded some that this sudden glare of brightness and warmth, glistening with increasing intenseness on every ridge and eastern surface, might call forth some corresponding vibrations, and therefore that the plaintive tones we heard were in fact a sort of sympathetic music,—the Maladetta's morning hymn."

[28] "Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, No. XVI; The Peculiar Noises Heard in Mountains."



Far to the west, over other ranges, the guide points out the glaciers of Mont Perdu and the Vignemale. We are looking off also from this point upon the beginnings of Aragon and of Catalonia; there is nothing smiling about Spain as seen from the Entecade; sterile hills solely heap themselves to the horizon.

We linger on the small knoll, a few feet only in width, which caps the mountain beneath us. Clouds scud over the summits and pass on, and turn by turn we have seen the full view. Finally they come streaming in more resolutely, and eventually defeat the breeze; then we turn downward at last, at a brisk pace, race down the slopes and re-enter France; and warily recrossing the long pasture of the corniculates, hasten on until the hospice appears in sight once more below.

It is far past mid-day now, and we are more than ready for suggestions of alimentation. There is a sheltered table with benches just out of doors before the hospice, and here we seat ourselves, flanked by with two massive dogs, and soon are discussing a nondescript repast which is too late for lunch and too early for dinner but which is remarkably appetizing in either view. An hour later, we are again in Luchon, greeted by the deferential head-waiter of the Richelieu, whose starchy bosom expands with hourly welcome for each who comes or who returns.

VIII.

There are divers other trips near Luchon which should be taken by the time-wealthy. It is a centre of more excursions than any of the other resorts; to count those which are tres recommandees alone needs all the fingers. There is the much praised drive into the Vallee du Lys, with its white cascades, its "Gulf of Hell," its fine view of the ice-wastes of the Crabioules. There is the ascent to Superbagneres, an easy monticule overshading Luchon, whose view is ranked with that from the Bergonz. There is the day's ride through the Valley of Aran, which opened out below us from the Entecade,—a truly Spanish valley, though in France; its natives, its customs, its inns, all Hispanian, and unwontedly unconventional. There is the ride and climb to the Lac d'Oo, a mate of the trip from Cauterets to the Lac de Gaube. And for a longer jaunt, one can remount to the Port de Venasque and pierce down upon the Spanish side to the village of Venasque itself, returning next day by another port and the Frozen Lakes. Or this trip can be prolonged by making the tour of the Maladetta, passing on from Venasque entirely around that mountain system and returning within the week by still another route to Luchon. The views on this last tour are described as remarkable, though it is a trip seldom made; the accommodation is doubtless uncomforting, but the tour, in outline at least, strongly resembles the tour of Mont Blanc, which ranks with the finest excursions in the Alps.

In short, there is a bewilderment of alternatives, each of the first rank in interest and heavily endorsed. Luchon is as easily the belle of the spas in location as in beauty; and one might strongly suspect that the charms of its climbs cure quite as many ills as its springs. Good as the waters may be, one does not become well by drinking merely, and sitting in wait for health; it needs precisely the invigoration of these tempting outings to quicken languid pulses and inspire sluggish systems.

Even in winter, many of these Pyrenees mountain-trips are entirely practicable. The Cirque of Gavarnie is reputed a double marvel under a winter robe, when its cascades are stiffened into ice and the eye is lost in the sweep of the snow-fields. Cauterets is hospitable throughout the winter, and so are both of the Eaux. Even the Vignemale has been ascended of a February, and the more ordinary excursions can be undertaken in all seasons. One cannot help thinking that the invalid of Pau's winter colony could better tell over the benefits of this Pyrenees climate if he would but test it,—if he would seek its pure, sharp, aromatic stimulus in in-roads upon the mountains themselves, in place of his mild promenadings along the Terrace in view of them with a heavy fur coat on his back and another on his tongue.

The mountains are nearer him, besides, than they formerly were. They have been opened to approach. Once there was no Route Thermale over the cols; no facile pass to Venasque or the Lac de Gaube; no iron bars in the difficult spots en the Pic du Midi d'Ossau. That day is gone by. Parts at least of the wild mountains are tamed; danger has been driven back, hardly the daunt of difficulty remains. D'Etigny and Napoleon and the Midi Railroad have smoothed all the ways; there is no longer reason to dread the lumbering diligence, the rough char-roads, the pioneer cuttings through the pine-brakes. The buoyant mountain trips we have touched upon, and more, are within almost instant call of every dispirited Pau valetudinary, and of farther travelers as well. They have but to go forth and meet them.

That this is becoming known is shown by the yearly increasing tide of visitors. The cultured modern world enjoys reading the book of nature,—especially so, provided some one has cut the leaves.

IX.

In the evening, we repeat the stroll down the Allee d'Etigny. The lights twinkle brightly down upon the street; the shops are open, the hotels lit up, the cafes most animated of all. Here on the sidewalks, around the little iron tables, sits Luchon, sipping its liqueurs and tasting its ices. It is the cafe-life of Paris in miniature,—as characteristically French as in the capital. To "Paris, c'est la France," one might almost add, "le cafe, c'est Paris." France would not be France without it. It is its hearthstone, its debating-club, the matrix of all its national sentiments.

There is an "etiquette" of Continental drinks. By the initiate, the code is rigorously observed; each class of beverages has its hour and reason, and your true Frenchman would not dream of calling for one out of place and time. In the cafe-gardens of the large hotels you will see the waiters' trays bearing one set of labeled bottles before dinner and another after; one at mid-day, another in the evening. There is also a ritual of mixing; syrups and liqueurs all have their chosen mates and are never mismated.

From, an intelligent waiter in Lyons, a double fee extracted for me on one occasion some curious if unprofitable lore on the subject, since expanded by further queryings. The potations in-demand divide themselves, it appears, into two main classes: aperitifs and digestifs. The former are simply appetizers, usually of the bitters class, and are taken before meals. The latter, as their name shows, come after the repast, for some supposed effect in aiding digestion. These liquors are often, exceedingly strong, but it is to be remembered that the quantities taken are minute; when brought not mixed with water or syrups, a unit portion might hardly fill a walnut shell.

The favorite aperitifs are:

Price in centimes.[29]

Absinthe, mixed with Orgeat and seltzer-water, 50 Bitter, " " Curacao " " " 50 Vermouth, " " Cassis " " " 40 " " " Curacao " " " 40 " " " Bitter " " " 40 " " " Gomme " " " 40 Amer Picon, " " Curacao " " " 50 " " " " Grenadine" " " 60 " " " " Sirop ordinaire " 50 Madeira, Malaga, Frontignan, Byrrh, Quina or Ratafia, unmixed 60

[29] A centime is one-fifth of a cent.



After meal-time come the digestifs:

Price. Curacao Fokyn, unmixed, 60 Maraschino, " 60 Kuemmel, " 30 Kirschwasser, " 50 Chartreuse, " (yellow or green,) 60 or 80 Anisette, with seltzer, 80 Menthe, (Peppermint,) unmixed, or with seltzer, 50 Mazagran, or goblet of black coffee, with water, 40 Cafe noir, or small cup of black coffee, 35 " " with Cognac, 50 Limonade gazeuse, 40 Biere, bock or ordinaire, 30

Later in the evening, the ices come into play; returning from concert or promenade, one can choose from the following to recruit the wasted frame:

Price. Sorbet au Kirsch, 80 " " Rhum, 80 " " Maraschino, 80 Bavaroise au lait, 60 " a la vanille, 70 " au chocolat, 70 Glace vanille or other flavors, 50 and 75 Cafe glace, 50 Grock or Punsch, 60

And last, the inevitable

Eau sucree, with orange-flower, 35

The above sketchy division may perhaps add to the visitor's alien interest in Continental cafe-life, showing something of its system and rationale. These elaborate and varied concoctions, noxious and innoxious, are not, it must be understood, tossed off in the frenzied instantaneity of the American mode; before a tiny glassful of Curacao or sugar and water, the Gallic "knight of the round table" will sit for hours in utter content, reading the papers, talking, smoking, or clicking the inoffensive domino. Intoxication is almost unknown in the better cafes; their patrons may sear their oesophagi with hot Chartreuse, derange the nerves with Absinthe, stimulate themselves hourly with their little cups of black coffee and brandy; but they never get drunk. Frenchmen are temperate, even in their intemperance. An English gin-mill and probably an American bar causes more besotment than a dozen French cafes.



CHAPTER XVII.

OUT TOWARD THE PLAIN.

"How the golden light On those mountain-tops makes them strangely bright."

—The Pyrenees Herdsman.

We revolve an unhappy fact, as we ramble on along the brilliant Allee, this clear summer evening. We are no longer among the time-wealthy. With Barcelona and the Mediterranean in prospect, we cannot draw further in Luchon upon our reserve of days. The evening is flawless; the stars blaze overhead like the burst, of a rocket; the promise of the morrow is beyond doubt, and the Col d'Aspin is yet to be reconquered. We come back across the park to our pleasant rooms in the Richelieu; and a conclave ends in a summons to a livery-man and the order for carriages for a to-morrow's return to Bigorre.

Early rising is therefore enforced, without regard to resentment, the next morning, for we are to drive through within the day, not making a night's break as before at Arreau. There are thus the two hard cols to cross, one in the forenoon, the other in the afternoon; and the horses must have a long mid-day rest to accomplish the task. So the Allee-d'Etigny is just taking down, the shutters, as we prepare to drive away from the hotel; the dew is still dampening the walks; domestics are scouring entrance-ways and windows, a few early guides and drivers look wistfully at the departing possibilities. We are unfeignedly sorry to leave Luchon. But we exult in compensation over an unclouded day for the Col d'Aspin.

By the usual mysterious Continental system of telegraphy, the fact has spread that we are going, and even at this unseasonable hour the entire working force of the Richelieu, portier, waiter, head-waiter, maids, buttons, boots and bagsman line up to do us reverence. We pass from hall to carriages through a double row of expectants. It is a veritable running of the gauntlet, save that in running it we give rather than receive. Unlike recipients in most other parts of Europe, however, the servants here have the air of expecting rather than of demanding, and take what is given more as a gift than as a right. So we depart in the comfortable glow of benefaction, rather than in the calmer consciousness of indebtedness baldly paid.

We reach the foot of the first col, the Peyresourde, with views at the left of the distant glaciers above the Lac d'Oo, wind up to the crest as the morning wears on, and by noon have scudded down by the other side and are again at Arreau. It is a fete-day throughout France, and as we drive into the town we find the plain little street transformed into a bloom of flags and flowers and tri-colored bunting. On every side, as we stroll out later from the inn, the shops and houses are fluttering the red, the white and the blue, colors as dear to the American eye as to the French. Boughs and garlands festoon the archways; the neighborhood has flocked to the town in holiday finery, the cabarets or taverns are driven with custom, the nun-like town is become a masquerader. The scene is so different from that of the cold, grey morning on which we left for Luchon, that we vividly see how impressions of place as of person may change with the change of garb and mood.

The air is warm, even sultry, but not oppressive. In fact, the thermometer has not throughout the tour given any markedly choleric displays of temper. The Pyrenees, lying as they do so far toward the south, had held for us vague intimations of southern heat: linked closely in latitude with the Riviera and with mid-Italy, we had half feared to find them linked as well with Mediterranean and Italian temperatures, and so far ill adapted for summer traveling. But the fear was uncalled for. The weather has, on infrequent days, been undeniably warm, but no warmer than the summer heat of the valleys of the Alps or the Adirondacks. In fact, as a matter of geography, the Pyrenees lie in the same northerly latitude as the Adirondacks themselves. In point of elevation above the sea, the belt, even in its lowlands, is everywhere higher than the neighboring parallels of Nice or Florence; the air is fresher, shade and breeze are more abundant, as always among mountains; our trip, aiding, to verify this, convinces us that apprehensions as to excess of heat will here find gratifyingly little fulfilment.

II.

We beguile the three hours' wait with a lunch, a walk, and an idiot beggar with an imposing wen or goitre. This creature crouches persistently by the carriages while the horses are reharnessed and we are taking our places. The form is misshapen, the face distorted and scarcely human; we can get no answer from the mumbling lips save a sputter of gratitude for our sous; it is cretinism, hideous, hopeless, a horror among these beautiful valleys, yet as in the Alps pitifully common.

In the presence of this frightful disease, destroying every semblance of fair humanity, one can see some reason also for the belief in witchcraft and diabolism once so intense in the Pyrenees. If the body and mind of an "innocent" can thus come to part with the last vestige of its holy lineage, the soul of a "wicked" might with good reason seem to be capable of growing into full fellowship with the devil himself. So late as 1824, not far from this spot, they nearly burned an old woman for alleged sorcery; and in 1862, one was actually so burned, in the town of Tarbes, a few leagues away. This superstition of witchcraft has here been strong in all eras, but it is at last becoming extinct; cretinism, as anachronous and as horrible,—a fact, not a superstition,—remains unaccounted for and unlessened.

III.

By four o'clock, we are at the base of the Col d'Aspin and commence on the long curves that lead to its top. The valley behind extends as we rise; new breaks and depressions appear, branching off right and left on all sides. After a half hour, peaks begin to peep over the hills at our rear; they come up one by one into sight, each whiter and sharper than the last, until the southern line is a serrate row of them, gradually lifted wholly above the nearer hills. The promised panorama is truly taking shape. We near at length the crest of the col. The Pic du Midi de Bigorre will loom up beyond it, unclouded to-day, the drivers assure us, and we watch for a glimpse at last of that mythical peak, which we have skirted in cloud from Bareges to Bigorre and never yet once seen. We are just below the top of the col; twenty feet farther will place the carriages on the summit, when lo a huge rounded dome begins to rise slowly up beyond the edge, and as we advance lifts itself into the full form of the long sought Pic,—ten miles away to the west, yet looming out as clearly as if but across the valley. It stands alone against the horizon; there is no summit near to rival it; the sides are dark and steep and almost snowless; the summit is looking down upon Gavarnie,—upon Pau,—upon the wide march of the plains of France,—as upon us on the Col d'Aspin, eying us with its stony Pyrenean stare.

Behind, the southern view is now in its entirety. The full line of the Arreau and Luchon depressions is traceable, and of all their tributaries as well; the giant humps of the hills marshaled to form their walls. The separate pinnacles beyond them are countless. The chief array is compacted directly south, a fraise of bristles numbering the white Crabioules, the Pic des Posets, the Monts Maudits,—and at the left the summits of the Maladetta, a "citadel of silver" in a sky of gold, its glaciers fierce against the late afternoon sun.

At the right above the col is a wider point of view; we ascend for some twenty minutes over the pastures to the top, led by a herd-boy. The view now sweeps a new quarter of the horizon,—that of the northeast; and the full plain of Toulouse is spread at our feet, shading off in the far distance into a faint hazy transparence where a few soft clouds seal it to the line of the sky.

"Not vainly did the early Persian make His altar the high places and the peak Of earth-o'ergazing mountains."

The Dark Ages were strangely dark in one respect: they had forgotten the admiration for Nature. Save as to unaccustomed manifestations,—quakes and comets and like portents,—they seem to have noticed little of her higher or more unfamiliar moods. The sensation of the sublime was not in their range of emotions; it is distinctively a modern growth. Froissart traveled through this region on his way to Orthez; the Pyrenees peaks were in sight before him, day after day, near and distant; and they shone upon him for weeks from the hills about Gaston's castle. Not once does he mention their presence to admire it. Scarcely once do other writers of his or neighboring centuries notice even their existence, except as hunting-grounds or boundary-lines; "le spectacle des Alpes ne dit rien a Racine, et l'aspect des glaciers fait froid a Montaigne." All the historian's of the time of Henry IV speak of his having been born in "a country harsh and frightful,"—"un pays aspre et affreux." Even the early troubadours and trouveres, poets and rhapsodists, loving to admire and enlarge and extol, are silent concerning the mountains. Despourrins, the poet of the Pyrenees, sang of love and lyric inspiration; but he rarely looked up to seek the higher inspiration of their hills and snows. It is inexplicable that the power of the sublime should have been withheld from the age of romance and poetry and nearness to nature, and bestowed in growing measure upon our commercial and unenthusiastic era. It is not all wholly prosaic, after all, this nineteenth century of ours, when it has so ardently this high emotion, scorned by its intenser predecessors.

As we descend to the carriages, facing another tall Pic which shoots up from the farther side of the col, the sun has neared the clouds in the west; it strikes the far-off Maladetta glaciers with a light no longer white, but rose-tinted; the snows glow softly under it like fields of tremulous flame; the mountains gleam almost as something supernal, as we take a final gaze before turning away down the valley.

IV.

It is the last of our midsummer drive through, the Pyrenees. We realize it almost suddenly, and with regret. We seek to absorb and enjoy every minute as we drive down the long hills and on through the Vale of Campan in the evening light toward Bigorre. It is a chaotic, delightful array of memories that our minds are whirling over and over in their busy hoppers,—incidents and scenes, grains of legend, kernels of history, gleanings of quick, nearer life,—all the intermingled associations now sown for us over the region.

Instinctively we summon up recollections of the Alps for comparison with the mountains we are leaving. And the comparison is not found to be entirely a sacrilege. The Alps are first and preeminent among European mountains; the repose of their immensity, the sense of power, the indefinable, spell they exert, lesser ranges cannot in general features attempt to rival. But this is not to say that a lesser range, is a wholly inferior range,—that even in this effect of immensity, of power, it may not at certain points bear almost full comparison. The Pyrenees, we agree, are far from lacking material for a parallel. As we think of the briefly glimpsed cliffs of the Pic du Midi d'Ossau, or of the ice-fields seen about the Balaitous, the Vignemale, the Taillon, the Crabioules, we set them in thought almost against the crags of the Mont Cervin, or the Eismeer and the glaciers of the Bernina. We instance, as Alpine impressions, the prospects, among others, from the Aubisque and the Entecade; the snow-peaks, named and unnamed, in their sight, the heights and depths revealed by the view. We traverse again the gorges leading to Eaux Chaudes and Cauterets, and the winding road through the Chaos; we confront the amazing wall of the Cirque of Gavarnie, which has nothing of its own order in Switzerland that is even commensurate; we rehearse the account of the scaling of Mont Perdu and of the outlook from its summit, as first recorded by Ramond nearly a century since, when he finally succeeded in that initial ascent; we recall the descriptions of the illimitable desolations of the Maladetta fastnesses, more recently explored by Packe and Russell; and while these are single effects, and those of the Alps are beyond count, they are in character not to be excluded from almost equal rank. And over all the lowlands we throw that luxuriance of vegetation and of foliage, and a certain softness and richness of landscape, which cannot be found nearer the north, and which, in the contrast with the snow-peaks in sight beyond adds so strangely to the height and aloofness of the latter,—as in the view of the Pic de Ger from Eaux Bonnes, and the wider sweep from the Pau Terrace or the Col d'Aspin behind us. In fine, as genial Inglis long ago made summary, "the traveler who is desirous of seeing all the various charms of mountain scenery, must visit both Switzerland and the Pyrenees. He must not content himself with believing that having seen Switzerland he has seen all that mountain scenery can offer. This would be a false belief. He who has traversed Switzerland throughout has indeed become familiar with scenes which cannot perhaps be equaled in any other country in the world; and he need not travel in search of finer scenes of the same order. But scenes of a different order,—of another character,—await him in the Pyrenees; and until he has looked upon these, he has not enjoyed all the charms which mountain scenery is capable of disclosing to the lover of nature."

V.

Lights twinkle out everywhere over the valley, as we roll on toward Bigorre; every village and hamlet we pass is aglow with colored lanterns and varied illuminations, and all the Pyrenees seem to be keeping high holiday. Stalwart songs are resounding from porches and through the windows of the local cafes when the carriages reach Ste. Marie; we respond with the notes of America, as we drive out from the village, and catch an answering cheer in return. Everyone is determinedly happy, but happy or not, they have always a good word for our country. Other songs and scenes are caught as we whirl on over the valley-road and through the settlements; peasants peer at us from the wayside or from the occasional chalets near by, with pleasant salute and good wishes. At last, and with real regret, we have reached our destination; Bagneres de Bigorre is before us, and we are speeding into its streets.



It is here that we find the climax of the fete. The entire Promenade des Coustous is a blaze of light. Arches have been erected, rows of tiny glass lamps swing across from the trees, flags and bunting stream out over the music-stand and the hotels and shops on each side. The place is a mass of people; the bordering cafes are thronged; the band is playing clearly above the hum and buzz, and as we enter the street it happens to be just striking the signal for the Marseillaise. In an instant, the thousands of throats join in the sound; the roll of song deepens to a diapason; the solemn, forceful march of the melody is irresistible; all France seems to be joining with prayer and power in her loved anthem.

Quickly we have greeted our welcoming hostess once more, congratulated the drivers for their good day's work, and hurried out to the Coustous,—there to sit and sip ices and steep in the exhilaration of the festival until far into the night.

* * * * *

And so ends our mountain faring; and when, the next day, we turn to the morning train for Toulouse and the open plain, it is with anticipation still, yet with an unrepressed sigh at leaving these mountains and laughing valleys of the Pyrenees, of whose charms we had once so inadequately known.

THE END